Voices from the Indigenous Leadership Forum
THE 2006 INDIGENOUS leaership forum brought together young indigenous and settler community leaders and activists from across occupied Canada and beyond at the University of Victoria from June 5 to 16. The aim was to begin developing an authentic vision and workable alternatives for political organizing. Current statesponsored institutions and approaches were rejected in favour of embracing true indigenous principles. The ILF is a small group of people who are committed to their homelands and local struggles, while at the same time working regionally and nationally in a coordinated effort to end colonialism in all its forms. On these pages, we include images from the 2006 event, and highlights from the discussions that took place.
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT?
The Assembly of First Nations is just a lobby group for the band council chiefs, who are basically federal employees. These days, it’s a rubber stamp for the feds. In fact, people don’t realize it, but there is no democratic and legitimate Native government in all of this land.
FEASTING TRADITIONS
We wanted to develop ways of educating about healthy indigenous practices without shaming people. We decided to engage with the “West Coast Night” at the Vancouver Friendship Centre. We worked with people to learn about the traditions of feasting, and gathered all the traditional foods we could. We were able to come up with enough traditional food to feed 500 people.
CONTINUITY, UNITY
There is continuity to this movement. We are part of a history of resistance and defence of our people. The struggle is even more difficult and thus more honourable in urban spaces where there’s no clearly defined boundary. Rural or urban, we have the potential to build a unified movement by coordinating spiritually and strategically.
CONFRONTING THE SYSTEM
It seems like a good idea to try to go “off the grid” of the capitalist economy. But the Haida Gwaii live on bountifulislands that supported them for many generations, but now the small population of only 3000 can’t harvest enough food for subsistence because of sport fishing. At Akwesasne, people can’t eat their traditional foods because of PCB contamination. People are forced to buy their food. So we can’t just withdraw from the system, we need to build a movement that confronts it.
RESURGENCE
We have the elders, the olders and the youth in our communities. It is the olders that are the problem. The elders and the youth are the real force for building the indigenous resurgence.
RESPONSIBILITY
In our language, the word wit-waak, warrior, means ‘no fear.’ This means that we are responsible for creating a safe space for our people.
DIFFERENCE
We’re all at different places in our development, and we need to accept that. Each community has different protocols and traditions. It’s like bringing up babies!
RESPECT
We need to learn to respect each other, and build on those things that we have in common.
NO ALTERNATIVE
We’re organising because we believe there’s absolutely no alternative. We have to raise up our people and build unity.
RED POWER
I remember after the Trudeau government introduced the White Paper on Indian Policy, about sixteen angry university students gathered in a room. That gathering gave rise to the Red Paper, and the Red Power movement in Canada. This Indigenous Leadership Forum reminds me of that moment.
CREATING SPACE
Most people think of warriors as armed men wearing camouflage. But the indigenous warrior is not the same as a soldier. Soldiers serve the state; warriors serve their people. We have a social responsibility. Like the Zapatistas in Mexico, our job is to create the geographical and political space for our people to practice their way of life.
CONFLICT
The government is quite happy to support indigenous cultural activities such as the powwow industry. But when we exercise our traditional harvestingrights, or defend our traditional territory from commercial development, we end up in conflict situations.
ORGANISING LOCALLY
We can’t go running off to other communities until we’ve addressed issues in our own community. This can be difficult. I’ve been confronted with physical violence just for speaking out in disagreement with the treaty process. Sexual assault is a reality for women. We need to be prepared for this.
HEALING
Our warriors protect the land and the people, especially the dancers. The warriors have been stifled, and they have to regain strength. We have to heal each other, and we have to protect our lands because they’re part of that healing process.
CONFRONTING MACHISMO
There’s been a lot of machismo and drinking in the warrior movement. We need to confront and deal with these kinds of issues in order to be able to work together.